Stepping on my last nerve

I have just about had it.

Up to here.

You might guess what I've had it with, but here's a little backstory if you haven't yet:

In 2000, George W. Bush was elected President. By the Supreme Court. 5-4. If you are a rightwinger reading this, don't bother giving me the old song and dance. This and This tell the tale. OK, we who voted for the actual winner that year should have been doing an Iran and hitting the streets demanding that the person we elected President be sworn in.

Didn't happen. OK.

Still not on my last nerve yet.

I'd always wondered why, given all of the elections for President in our history, it was so important that George W. Bush become President no matter what you had to do to put in the fix. It struck me as very strange. Then I found out why. 9/11 happened. We were attacked and even diehards like me were giving the new guy in the White House a chance. Now, don't put me in with the "Bush did 9/11" crowd - give me a second to make my point. We had the country as united as it ever is when faced with an external threat - even those outside of the US who were supposed to be against us were horrified at that act of mass murder and offered their sympathies and condolences. We were all pretty stirred by W's speech to Congress too, as well as when he stood in the rubble of the World Trade Center and promised that the ones who did this would be hearing from us soon.

I'm going to stop rehashing history here. We all know what happened next with Iraq and the lies told to us to get us to support going there. Bush's presidency survived a strong challenge for a second term then it all went to shit.

We could hardly wait to replace the Bumbler and Liar in Chief.

We did with an intelligent, eloquent man from Illinois and made history. Our first black President! My God, I never thought it would happen in my lifetime and was in tears on election night both in relief of finally getting rid of Dubya and the Neocons and in sadness that my late wife hadn't lived long enough to see it with me.

Ah, there's that word. Finally. Oops on me.

I think a lot us were a bit too full of hope that election night. We never saw Obama as a "Messiah" like the far right liked to pretend, but we also didn't see him first as a black man. The tears in Obama supporters wasn't us seeing him as the Second Coming, it was joy that we didn't have to deal with daily scandals and outrages presided over by a semi-literate party hearty "good ol' boy" from Tex-onnecticut. The tears during the inauguration was because not only did we get a very good man elected, we showed the world that we'd moved beyond racism and hate.

Or, we thought we had. Our mistake.

First mistake: we thought that the over the top rhetoric from the fringes of the right really didn't run the GOP. OK, yeah we poked and teased them over it but we didn't really didn't think that the regular Rpublican party was personified by Rush Limbaugh and Mann Coulter. Saying that was just to get the goat of the people who had rubbed our noses in Bushit for 8 years. Then out came the crazies, blaming the new President for all the bad things the previous one actually did and more without his being in office even a year yet. We said to ourselves, "Oh crap, we were really right about the Republicans?"

Getting close to that last nerve now.

Mistake #2: believing that we'd finally staked that old monster Racism in the heart and it was gone for good. OK, for a far right party these aren't necessarily racist. Tea Parties. Obama as Hitler....well, OK, not that one so much - let's be honest with ourselves here, we did do it to Bush first. Whatever the right considered "bad" they said Obama was one of them. Shouting matches at town halls over health care reform (that was a strange one).

OK, that could all be put down to partisan overzealousness as much as anything else.

However....

Postcards of the White House with watermellons on the front lawn.

Photoshopping Obama into a stereotypical African witch doctor, complete
with a bone through his nose.

Buttons saying, "If Obama wins will we still call it the White
House?"

Bumperstickers saying, "Do we really need a black man begging for CHANGE in
the White House?"

"Obama Bucks" with pictures of watermellons and fried chicken along the
edges.

A stuffed monkey in a suit with "Obama '08" on its lapel.

Try Googling "Racist Obama images" and see what pops up - the above is just a small list of examples.

If that ain't flat-out racism, I don't know what is.

Closer to that last nerve...not quite there yet......

The kicker to all of this? The racists aren't even trying to hide it anymore. Oh, they'll do their usual shuffle to avoid being called what they are. You know, if you talk about race issues at all you must be a racist...especially if you aren't white. Say some anti-Obama people are racists then start screaming "You called us ALL racists!!" The usual male bovine excrement.

However, it's not just that. The people who send this stuff out will stand there before God and a TV camera and not only not deny they sent it, they claim they didn't realize it was offensive.

What? WHAT?!!

Do you all think that when Obama was elected the heat was off and you could let that racist freak flag fly?!!!

Were you all hatched yesterday and have no clue what is racist and what isn't after all this country has gone through because of it?!!

ARE YOU SHITTING ME?!!!!

NOW we hit that last nerve!

Alrighty then. That's how you want to play it, eh righties?

Fine.

You are total ignorant assholes. I have no interest in what you think or what you say. I will no longer argue with you over what's true and what's not. I don't care what you believe in or don't. I'm not your friend and you are no friend to my country. I will not debate you. I will barely acknowledge your existence. I will not indulge in a shouting match with you. I don't care what Rush or Glenn or Sean or FOX told you to think today. You are a danger to the Republic. You are traitors to the real America. You are just enough to rate a derisive laugh.

The only thing that interests me about you is seeing to it that your empty head is beat down so far that your ass is a planter in China. I can't defeat you enough. Kick you when you're down? I'll be running a steam roller over you.

You want a war? Bring it on.

Wouldn't it be fin-ah to hate on Mr. Obama in the mooooorning?

Ah those teabaggers, what a bunch huh? Here we are a few days after their Two (Three? Four?) Hour Hate on the President in Washington D.C. and I am still laughing.

And what's not to laugh at? Here they are, complaining mightily that they aren't tools of insurance company lobbbyist front groups like Dick Armey's "Freedomworks" and just look at the DC podium. Full of signs from Freedomworks. Featured speakers from, you guessed it, Freedomworks. My sides are splitting here.

Then there's those signs! Nasty things about sending Obama "back" to Kenya as if he ever came from there. Those "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy" ones were real classy. I sure hope the passing of one of their relatives becomes a political slogan - it'd only serve them right. Not that they'd get them, of course. And talk about all over the map! They make protest marches from the left look unified and on message!! SOCIALIST!! COMMUNIST!! NAZI!! HITLER!! OBAMA!! ACORN!! SOROS!! THE CONSTITUTION SAYS WHAT I SAY IT SAYS!!

And the favorite - DON'T HELP ME GET GOOD HEALTHCARE!!

I'd love to take them up on that one. Fortunately for them, President Obama is much nicer than I am. Then again, I'm not President so I don't have to be. I'd happily cut them loose from the good things that health care reform will do for us. Send these townhall screamer and nasty sign waver jerk-offs out in the streets to beg once their Insurance Company/Rightwing Masters take every penny they've got when they get real sick and they find out how some of their policies weren't so great after all. Hell, you don't believe in helping yourself out, great! Just don't come whining and crying to us when you find out we were right all along. Again.

But that's just me.

If that wasn't pure comedy enough, during and after the Nut-em-berg Rally they had to go and LIE ABOUT HOW MANY PEOPLE SHOWED UP!! I saw people writing that it was about 30,000 - others said 70K. OK, that's a fair to middlin' number or people to make the effort to be there and protest....whatever made-up nonsense they were protesting. I think they were mostly protesting that they lost in '06 and '08 and that Obama is black. OK. Waste of time since none of that will change because they want to loudly weep about it but still OK.

This is America and you can protest any damn thing you want to - right or wrong.

I support that.

Been there, done that even.

As they are wont to do, they had to go and blow it, claiming 1.5 MILLION people were there. Ummm...no. The said ABC NEWS said so! Ummm...no. They showed PICTURES proving it! Ummm....no. What the assembled crackpot-ic folks have yet to get is that the fastest way to become marginalized and disbelieved is to lie about something. And the number of people who show up to your event is kinda a big thing to be lying about.

Anyhoo - I'm positive this won't be the last time this happens. I do have a word of advice that I know that my friends on the orbiting Saturn far right will ignore.

You have at least 3, if not 7, more years of Obama to go.

Pace yourselves.

You'll be all worn out come 2010.